Russians, and four thousand more marching to prison camps. I tell you, it makes you sick to think of this damned waste!”
Michael didn’t feel well himself, thinking of how he’d have to cling to the wall to get across that hole. As the two officers talked on the lower balcony, he stretched out as far as he could, hooked his raw fingers into cracks, and tensed his shoulders. Now! he thought, and before he could hesitate he swung out over the ledgeless gap, his shoulder muscles bunching under his shirt and his fingers and wrists as taut as pitons. He hung for a few seconds, trying to get his right foot up on the next fragment of ledge. A piece of masonry cracked off and fell, smaller pebbles of stone following it down into the dark.
“It’s murder,” the first officer was saying, his voice getting more strident. “Absolute murder. Young men by the thousands, being torn to shreds. I know, I’ve seen the reports. And when the people of Germany find out about this, there’ll be hell to pay.”
Michael couldn’t get his foot up on the ledge, because the stone kept crumbling away. Sweat was on his face. His wrists and shoulders were cramping. Another chunk of masonry fell, and hit the castle’s wall on the way down.
“My God, what was that?” the second officer asked. “Something just fell, over there.”
“Where?”
Come on, come on! Michael told himself, and swore at his clumsiness. He got the toe of his right shoe wedged on a small piece of ledge that, mercifully, didn’t fall. Some of the pressure eased on his fingers and wrists. But small bits of stone were still crumbling, the pebbles making little clicking noises as they ricocheted off the stones below.
“There! You see? I knew I heard it!”
In another few seconds the two men were going to lean over their balcony’s railing, look up, and see him battling for balance. Michael slid his right foot forward, made room for the toe of his left shoe on the fragment of ledge, and then heaved with his straining shoulders and stretched so that his right foot found a stronger place to rest. Blok’s terrace was within reach. He unhooked his right hand, gripped the balustrade, and quickly pulled himself over onto the sturdy surface. He rested a moment, breathing hard, his shoulder and forearm muscles slowly unkinking.
“This whole damn place must be falling apart,” the first officer said. “Just like the Reich, eh? Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if this balcony fell under our feet.”
There was silence. Michael heard one of the men nervously clear his throat, and the next sound was that of the balcony door opening and closing.
Michael turned the knobs of the French doors and entered Jerek Blok’s suite.
He knew where the dining room was, and the kitchen beyond that. In that area he didn’t care to wander, since some of the waiters and kitchen staff might be around. He crossed the high-ceilinged living room, passing a black marble fireplace above which the requisite painting of Hitler hung, and reached another closed door. He tried the gleaming brass knob, and the door yielded to him. There were no lights in the room, but he could see well enough: shelves of books, a massive oak desk, a couple of black leather chairs, and a couch. This must be Blok’s permanent office when he visited the Reichkronen. Michael closed the door behind him, walked across the thick Persian carpet-probably stolen from the house of a Russian nobleman, he thought grimly-and to the desk. On it was a green-shaded lamp, which he switched on to continue his search. On one wall was a large framed photograph of Blok, standing under a stone arch. Beyond him were wooden structures and coils of barbed wire, and a brick chimney puffing black smoke. On the stone arch was carved FALKENHAUSEN. The concentration camp, near Berlin, where Blok had served as commandant. It was the photograph of a man proud of his child.
Michael turned his attention to the desk. The blotter was clean; Blok evidently was the soul of neatness. He tried the top drawer: locked. So were all the other drawers. The desk had a black leather chair with a silver SS embedded in its backrest, and leaning against it in the desk’s well was a black valise. Michael picked it up. The valise bore the silver SS insignia and the Gothic initials JGB. He put the valise atop the desk and unzipped it, reaching inside. His hand found a folder and drew it out.
Within the folder were various sheets of white paper-Blok’s official SS stationery-on which numbers were typed. The numbers were arranged in columns, designating amounts of money. Budget sheets, Michael reasoned. Beside the numbers were initials: perhaps the initials of people, items, or a code of some kind. In any case he had no time to try to decipher them. His overall impression was that a large amount of money had been spent on something, and either Blok or a secretary had written down everything to the last deutsche mark.
Something else was in the folder, too: a square brown envelope.
Michael unclasped it and slid its contents out under the lamp.
There were three black-and-white photographs. Michael flinched, but then leaned forward and forced himself to study them closely.
The first photograph showed the face of a dead man. What was left of the face, that is. The left cheek had collapsed into a ragged-edged crater, holes covered the forehead, the nose had rotted into a gaping hole, and teeth showed through the tattered lips. More holes, each one about an inch in diameter, were scattered over the chin and the exposed throat. All that remained of the right ear was a nub of flesh, as if someone had burned it off with a blowtorch. The man’s eyes stared blankly, and it took Michael a few seconds to realize that his eyelids were gone. At the bottom of the photograph, just below the corpse’s ravaged throat, was a slate. And on that slate was chalked, in German: 2/19/44, Test Subject 307, Skarpa.
The second photograph was a profile of what might have been a woman’s face. There was a little dark, curly hair clinging to the skull. But most of the flesh was gone, and the wounds were so hideous and deep that the sinus passages and the root of the tongue were exposed. The eye was a white, melted mass, like a lump of candle wax. Across the corpse’s cratered shoulder was a slate: 2/22/44, Test Subject 345, Skarpa.
Michael felt prickles of cold sweat on the back of his neck. He looked at the third picture.
Whether this human being had been man, woman, or child was impossible to tell. Nothing remained of the face but wet craters held together by strands of glistening tissue. In that gruesome ruin the teeth were clenched, as if biting back a final scream. Holes pocked the throat and shoulders, and the slateboard read 2/24/44, Test Subject 359, Skarpa.
Skarpa, Michael thought. The Norwegian island where Dr. Gustav Hildebrand kept a second home. Obviously Hildebrand had been entertaining guests. Michael steeled himself, and looked at the photographs again. Test subjects. Nameless numbers; probably Russian prisoners. But-dear God!-what had done this kind of damage to human flesh? Even a flamethrower gave a cleaner death. Sulfuric acid was the only thing he could think of that might have wreaked such horror, yet the tattered edges of the flesh showed no sign of being burned, by either chemicals or flame. He was certainly no expert on corrosives, but he doubted that even sulfuric acid could have such a savage effect. Test subjects, he thought. Testing what? Some new chemical that Hildebrand had developed? Something so hideous that it could only be tested on a barren island off the coast of Norway? And what might this have to do with Iron Fist, and a caricature of a strangled Hitler?
Questions without answers. But of one thing Michael Gallatin was certain: he had to find those answers, before the Allied invasion a little more than a month away.
He returned the photographs to the envelope, then the envelope and papers to the folder, the folder to the valise, the valise zippered and replaced exactly where he’d found it. He spent a few more minutes looking around the office, but nothing else caught his interest. Then he switched off the lamp, crossed the room, and headed for the front door. He was almost there when he heard a key slip into the latch. He stopped abruptly, spinning around and striding quickly for the terrace doors. He was barely out onto the balcony when the door opened. A girl’s breathy, excited voice said, “Oh, this looks like heaven!”
“The colonel enjoys luxury,” came the husky reply. The door shut, and was relocked. Michael stood with his back against the castle wall and darted a glance through the glass of the French doors. Boots had found a female companion, evidently bringing her up to Blok’s suite to try to impress her out of her dress. The next step, if Michael knew anything about seduction, was to bring her out to the balcony and lean her over the edge to give her a tingle. In that case this would not be the best place to stand.
Michael quickly stepped over the balustrade onto the treacherously gapped ledge. He slipped his raw fingers into chinks, held tight, and started back the way he’d come. The masonry cracked and crumbled under his weight, but he got across the gaps and reached the balcony to Sandler’s suite. Behind him he heard the girl say, “It’s so high, isn’t it?”
